


Different truths

by LydiaFearing



Category: Critical Role
Genre: Elves, Half-Elves, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-12 21:11:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7949320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LydiaFearing/pseuds/LydiaFearing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short first-person drabble from Velora's perspective, comparing how Syngorn sees her family and how she does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Different truths

**My father is an important man.**

My father is a closed door with brass leaves on the handle that I can trace with my fingers but never turn.

**My mother is an important woman.**

My mother is a cup of fresh tea. She is the leaves and rose petals dancing in the cups, spelling out the future.

**My brother and sister are nothing.**

My brother and sister are smiles that glint in the dark like daggers. They are surprise arrivals in the dead of night, excited whispers, hugs in the kitchen that soak my night clothes with rain and mud.

**My father is a great man of good family.**

My father is the tension around the dining table. He is why we eat there and why I must wear a glimmering dress that wants to crush me. He is curt syllables in long words, an impatient flick of the hand and a mouth reluctant to smile.

**My mother is a good woman of great family.**

My mother is the laughter in the garden. She is the pear trees, the ribbons in the their branches, the weight of their fruit, the smell of baked sugar. 

**My brother and sister are mistakes.**

My brother is every swear word I know and the promise that they will always be on my side. My sister is a thousand little gifts and the promise that they will always love me.

**My father is respectable.**

My father despises outsiders, despises the close-minded, despises cruelty, despises impulse. He can barely stand the sight of his other children, born to a foreign woman he barely knew who was left to die without them. He is stiff civility. He is the firm decision of when it is time that they leave.

**My mother is respectable.**

My mother obeys her husband in all things but one. She is the opening of a door latch at an ungodly hour. She is the soft shake to wake me. She is the cause and the witness. She is the offer of food, of tea, of beds. She is the sincerity in the apologies.

**My brother and sister are not respectable.**

My brother and sister are liars, thieves, mercenaries, adventurers, ambassadors, hunters. They are heroes.

**My father is my father.**

My father is my education, my judge, the gentle pressure on my shoulders telling me to be everything I should be, to ignore the voice in my head.

**My mother is my mother.**

My mother is a familiar song in the silence. She is softness, light and love. She will be my most difficult enemy one day. She is the only reason to stay in this place.

**My brother is my half-brother. My sister is my half-sister.**

My brother and sister are twins, near doubles of one another. They have wrapped their lives together like threads in a tapestry and I often think there is no room for me. They are whole.

My brother is a voice telling me I am their sister. My sister is a voice telling me I am whoever I choose to be.

I am a young woman of respectable family. I am the cause of half a dozen broken noses this year alone.

I am a bright scholar. I am muscles weary from swinging a sword, from climbing trees, from tackling people twice my size.

I am an only child. I am a sister who dreams every night of a hand shaking me awake, for smiles like daggers in the dark. I am the day I get to follow them. I am the weapon that will break my mother’s heart. I am my father’s daughter and he always did get what he wanted.


End file.
